Jennie Wyse Power

Jane "Jennie" Wyse Power (née O'Toole; 1 May 1858 – 5 January 1941) was an Irish activist, feminist, politician and businesswoman. She was a founder member of Sinn Féin and also of Inghinidhe na hÉireann. She rose in the ranks to become one of the most important women of the revolution. President of Cumann na mBan, she left the radicalised party and formed a new organisation called Cumann na Saoirse, holding several senior posts in the Dáil during the Free State.

Born Jane O'Toole in Baltinglass, County Wicklow in 1858, the daughter of Edward O'Toole and Mary Norton. When she was only two years old her father sold the business and moved to Dublin, where she attended either Warrenmount National School or Loreto Day School. Her family were strongly Nationalist and provided refuge for several Fenians. Before she was twenty she and her four siblings lost both their parents to illness. In 1881 she became involved in politics for the first time by joining the Ladies' Land League that year. She was an intimate of Anna Parnell and an admirer of Anna's brother, Nationalist Member of Parliament and Leader of the Home Rule Party, Charles Stewart Parnell.

During her time in the Ladies Land League she met her husband, John Wyse Power, the then editor of the Leinster Leader newspaper and a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. He was also one of the founder members of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). They married on 5 July 1883 and lived in Naas, County Kildare. The family moved to Dublin in 1885 after John secured a position with the national Freeman's Journal. They had four children together. Their youngest, a son, was born five months after the death of Parnell and was christened Charles Stewart Wyse Power in his memory. In that same year she published Words of the Dead Chief, with an introduction from Anna Parnell, containing a selection of extracts from Parnell's speeches. The Wyse Powers appear as the Wyse Nolans in Ulysses by James Joyce.

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